Monday, July 23, 2012

Following That Dream

Earlier
this month I received an e-mail from Phil Arnold, who runs the
ElvisBlog and is a regular
contributor to the Elvis International magazine. He told me that he
had just received his copy of the latest issue of the magazine and
that the article I wrote for it looked great.

It
was Phil Arnold who at the end of last year asked
me if I was interested in writing something about the Follow That
Dream (FTD) collector's label. Thinking about it, I came up with the
idea of focusing on the CD's in the series and how listening to
studio outtakes and live concerts can help you get a feel for how
Elvis approached his work.

During two months I wrote the article in my spare time, so reading the mail
from Phil Arnold felt good. He had noted that the editor Darwin Lamm
had split my story into parts, and that he looked forward to reading
more in the next issue.

I
then wrote an e-mail myself, to Darwin Lamm, asking his permission to
publish the whole article on my blog. He replied that it was OK, so
this week I devote my blog to the FTD label and the article
“Following That Dream” in no less than four posts, starting
today.

***

Following That Dream (Part 1)

With over 100 titles since the start in
1999, Sony BMG’s official Elvis Presley collectors label Follow
That Dream (FTD) has released more albums than Elvis did during his
life time. The wide range of available concerts as well as studio
outtakes offers an interesting insight into how Elvis approached his
work. Thomas Melin, author of the Elvis Today Blog, takes a closer
look at some of the CD releases from a label that has served the fans
with unreleased material for more than a decade.

The summer of 1999 saw the launch of
the collectors label Follow That Dream (FTD) with the title Burbank
68, featuring rehearsals, studio and live recordings from Elvis’
legendary TV Special.

I still remember how excited I felt
reading the announcement of the label in the British fan club
magazine and ordering the CD. For years the major European fan clubs
had discussed the possibility of establishing a legitimate Elvis
Presley collector’s label, and finally Elvis’ record company had
agreed. The goal with the new label was (and still is) to serve the
dedicated Elvis collector with unreleased material. Since then, FTD
with producers Ernst Jorgensen and Roger Semon at the wheel has
produced an average of eight releases a year.

That’s an impressive release schedule
if you stop and think about it for a moment. Just compare it with the
“dry” years between 1978 and 1986 when only about 25 Elvis
releases from RCA saw the light of the day (that's averaging three
albums a year), many of them compilations with mostly old material,
like The Rocker and Always On My Mind. In those
days it was a long wait for an Elvis record including unreleased
material, and releases such as Elvis: The First Live Recordings
and Elvis - A Golden Celebration were a big happening, indeed.

Things just had to get better – and
they did. In the mid 1980’s Ernst Jorgensen (then employed by RCA
in Denmark) and Roger Semon (then employed by RCA in London) teamed
up and during the 15 years or so that followed they brought order and
vitality to the Elvis Presley record catalog. Not only did the
releases improve greatly, they also served to reestablish Elvis
reputation. Suddenly people around me thought it was cool that I
listened to Elvis (something I’d known all along).

A steady stream of critically acclaimed
box sets like Collectors Gold, The King Of Rock ‘n’
Roll, From Nashville To Memphis, Walk A Mile In My
Shoes and Platinum – A Life In Music were released, but
also a couple of albums that in a way were the forerunners to what
was to become the FTD label. This was the Essential Elvis series,
where Ernst Jorgensen and Roger Semon used the same formula that they
would on many of the FTD releases. That is, collecting unreleased
outtakes from a certain recording session or studio on an album.

In fact, during 1999 and 2000, Ernst
and Roger produced albums for BMG that could as easily have been FTD
releases, as well as the other way around. One example of this is the
last Essential Elvis volume Such A Night (2000) that focused
on the early sixties sessions that took place in RCA’s Studio B in
Nashville, another the FTD album Long Lonely Highway released
the same year, featuring Studio B outtakes from 1960 to 1968. With
this in mind, it came as no big surprise when I read in an FTD
catalogue from 2004 that the highly popular FTD album The Jungle Room
Sessions (2000), with material from Elvis’ two last albums, was
originally planned as a release on the Essential Elvis series on the
main label.

And speaking of the The Jungle Room
Sessions, this was the first FTD title that made many fans, me
included, revaluate a certain recording session, as it presented the
1976 recordings in a much more positive light than was the case with
the original albums From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis,
Tennessee and Moody Blue. Elvis generally seems to be in a
good mood, laughs between songs and above all, is committed. And
without the heavy overdubs (strings, horns and voices) found on the
masters, the takes included on The Jungle Room Sessions makes
for a more moving listening experience as well, exposing Elvis
feelings. One such example is the first take of “It’s Easy For
You.” As the musicians hit a couple of notes to check their
instruments, Elvis says, “I get carried away very easily. Emotional
son of a bitch.” And he’s right. What follows is one of the most
emotional performances ever done by Elvis, at least in my book.

2 comments:

Mike Hermenet
said...

What a FANTASTIC article so far my friend!! You have definitely nailed it when you mentioned how JUNGLE ROOM SESSIONS really allows listeners to re-evaluate their feelings about those final recording sessions! After all the years of hearing how depressed Elvis' mood was during the JRS, to hear the outtakes and to hear Elvis talking and occasionally joking around and laughing completely disproves all that had been said!

Once again, OUTSTANDING work on your article and I can't wait for part 2!!

Thank you, Mike, glad you liked it! Writing the article made me realize once more just how much FTD has meant and still means to us Elvis fans, and how lucky we are to have the label (even if we don't always agree with everything they do).